Some early UFO cases involving occupants, such as those in the ’50s and ’60s, involved more often than not creatures that resembled human beings in most respects. The more notorious “contactee” experiences provided a wealth of god-like, fair-haired saucernauts claiming to be our kindly elder brothers from outer space, visiting Earth to show us the error of our ways.

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In the Grey-and-Reptoid-haunted 1980’s, 1990’s, and today, it is almost heretical to suggest that any other possible form of occupant can emerge from a UFO. But human ufonauts remain an intriguing part of the picture, and their very existence has suggested very disturbing possibilities to certain investigators.

In 1967, South American UFO researcher Luis Anglada Font, an ex-WW II fighter pilot and former intelligence operative, published a well-written compilation of U.S. and European cases entitled “La Realidad Ovni Atraves de los Siglos” (“UFOs Throughout the Centuries”), in which he turned his military man’s eye upon a problem that distressed him greatly: he had no doubt as to the fact that UFOs and their occupants were real, but what was to be made of the humans who are often seen aboard UFOs or involved in some sort of activity with the ufonauts?

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Anglada stated in his book: “They come to our planet from satellites forming a stepladder in space, stealthily-with some exceptions-covering the Earth at amazing speeds….I get the impression that they know us better than we think, and I believe that they have a ‘fifth column’ that moves among us, and this is one of the factors that concerns me.”

What exactly is a “fifth column”? Simply stated, it is any group that secretly sympathizes with an enemy, aiding and abetting their cause in ways that range from espionage to terrorism. Anglada’s thesis was that UFOs were far from being sanguine, and that their ultimate goal was the subversion of humankind, although perhaps by not as blunt a method as outright hostility. This group of underminers would be humans in league with the ufonauts and sympathetic to their ultimate aims.

We know more about the phenomenon than we did back in 1967, to be sure, and the paragraph from Anglada’s book could easily be dismissed as cold war paranoia. Certainly, even Dr. Olavo Fontes, APROs Brazilian consultant and the key researcher of the Villas-Boas case, believed in a “military” objective to UFO activity, regarding the infamous attack on the Itaipu garrison (1965) as the opening round in a massive UFO invasion of Northern Brazil1.

But in 1989, Spanish UFO investigator J.J. Ben¡tez investigated a case which took place in the south of Spain involving the materialization of two large, brilliant figures that turned into human beings before the eyes of frightened teenagers. The “humans” were a male and female, dressed in street clothes appropriate for the time and place. They calmly walked along the beach and vanished into a crowd, while a UFO display filled the heavens above. The witnesses stuck around to see them return hours later, capturing with a Super-8 camera their unusual manner of walking2. The trail of footprints left by the male and female led straight into the water.

The incident caused the researcher to give his book, in which this case was featured, an ironic name: La Quinta Columna (The Fifth Column). The evidence presented by Luis Anglada in his argument was based on the mysterious disappearances of humans and “breeding experiments,” such as those in the Villas-Boas case.

Humans were being abducted in order to breed an “invasion force” that would be human and acclimated to the alien’s home planet. He suggested that not all the force would consist of conscripts-some would be youthful volunteers, who, attracted by the prospect of adventure, would choose to throw their lot in with the ufonauts.

Despite the “space opera” ring that such a claim leaves in our ears, the truth is that humans have been reported in some landmark cases. In September, 1972, a driver near the town of Palenque in the Dominican Republic was flagged down by a trio of aliens in grey form-fitting uniforms and with lemon-hued skins. An egg-shaped UFO was in the background, and the driver became understandably concerned for his safety.

One of the aliens approached him and engaged him in perfect Spanish, telling him that he had once been as human as he was, having been rescued by the aliens from nearly drowning in the high seas ten years previously. His human name had been Freddy Miller, and he had successfully adapted to living on the aliens’ homeworld.

Jacques Vallee mentions a case in his book Dimensions which occurred in Temple, OK, in 1966. A flight instructor saw a brilliant machine parked on a shoulder on the interstate, got out of his car to take a snapshot of it, and noticed a “man in military fatigues…a plain old G.I. mechanic”carrying out repairs on the wingless, tapered fuselage. It had no visible means of propulsion, yet it took off vertically at an astounding speed.3

Spanish researcher Ben¡tez mentions another roadside encounter, this one in November of 1974 outside Huesca, Spain. It involved a couple who stopped their car to have a bizarre conversation with a pointy-faced, all-too-human ufonaut, who asked a surprising question of the motorists: could they lend him a monkey wrench? A semi-spherical UFO with alternating red, yellow, and white lights hovered in the background, and the driver wondered what good would a wrench do aboard such a vehicle. The ufonaut introduced himself as the former “Dr. Flor, from Barcelona.”

In 1980, private plane owner Jos Antonio Pagan disappeared while flying from Santo Domingo to Puerto Rico. He sent out a frantic mayday in the darkness: his plane was being dragged off course by a “weird light.” A Boeing 747 belonging to the Spanish airline IBERIA heard the mayday, and relayed his descriptions to the FAA headquarters in San Juan, P.R., until Pagan finally vanished.

Months later, his mother reportedly saw Jos Antonio in a vision one afternoon: he was wearing a metallic green uniform with black metal boots, and told her that he had joined the “extraterrestrials” in their mission and was quite safe and very happy with his new life.

Perhaps even more alarming is a case investigated by Spanish researcher Manuel Carballal. According to the testimony of a number of witnesses, a young man who identified himself as Frederick Valentich, the Australian pilot who disappeared mysteriously in 1978, was alive and well in 1990 at Plaza del Charco, a seaport square on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Displaying an Australian passport to prove his claim, Valentich told those with whom he spoke on several occasions that he now belonged to a group of humans who had been “recruited” by extraterrestrials. It is also worth noting that the supposed Valentich showed no signs of aging, and resembled the photos circulated around the time of his disappearance at the age of 20.

A group of nine Puerto Rican UFO watchers ascended to the heights of El Yunque Rainforest in October 1974 in hopes of seeing the elusive phenomenon. The singular experience they had on the evening in question, however, took place at ground level.

Heriberto Ramos, a researcher and the group’s leader, recently stated in a radio interview that at the time of their overnight stay in the jungle peak, there were no commercially available flashlights that would last an entire evening, so the group’s lighting issued from an ingenious PVC tube containing an auto headlight and a car battery. As the hopeful saucer watchers ascended the trail, they were surprised to see three human beings coming down from the mountain top in their direction.

The three humans-two males and a female-had an uncanny resemblance to one another and were clad in nondescript uniforms. There appeared to be nothing “alien” about the threesome, who spoke Spanish and claimed to be from a local community, until one of the group members noticed a puzzling detail-the uniformed trio were utilizing an improvised lighting source that resembled their own in every respect.

Photos taken of the trio revealed haze-shrouded images upon being developed. Their images, however, could be made out clearly on infrared film. This peculiarity, Ramos reasoned, was probably the reason that the pictures and other UFO related materials were stolen from his office by unknown interests.

There are many more cases in which humans-not humanoids or human-looking aliens-have been seen operating in conjunction with clearly nonhuman types, ranging from “Greys” to tall, god-like blonds. Although his argument was couched in military terms, could there be the slightest bit of validity to Luis Anglada’s fears of a “fifth column”?

The answer is a cautious “yes.” Charles Fort toyed with the notion of “certain esoteric ones” being in contact with nonhuman forces since the dawn of history in the pages of his Book of the Damned.

Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier suggested the existence of the “Nine Unknown Men” in their Le Matin de Magiciens, who would be beings of our own world in contact with higher powers. Could some of the human “crewmembers” be the descendants of those who were forcibly abducted in the past?

There is an extensive tradition of people who were kidnapped “from above” in human history-Elijah; Romulus, the founder of Rome; and a host of unnamed ones-combined with the many thousands that disappear every year without a trace4. If these alien-born humans have the power, obviously, to return to Earth, what keeps them from staying? Perhaps they fear the reprisals of their alien masters, or the loss of certain faculties (“powers,” so to speak) that they may have developed or acquired on other worlds. Perhaps they have been thoroughly “brainwashed” and no longer see Earthbound humanity as kin.

Anglada offers a more ominous possibility: these UFO-related humans (as well as the “offspring” of our contemporary abductees, resulting from the breeding experiments to which they are allegedly subjected) could well be our replacements on this planet, after our own race is annihilated either by design or accident. In his militaristic scenario, these hybrid humans would be returned to Earth as our overlords or taskmasters: much more alien than human in custom, training and choice.

The genetic experiments being visited upon unsuspecting humans worldwide (the Mirassol case in Brazil, for instance) reinforce the above mentioned possibility. But what do the very human collaborators stand to benefit from it all? Power, influence or status in the real “new world order”? It remains anyone’s guess.

Editor’s Note

Among the interesting cases noted in this article is that of Frederick Valentich, 20, who disappeared Oct. 21, 1978, while piloting a single-engine Cessna 182 aircraft between Victoria, Australia, and King Island (across the Bass Strait). Following are the pertinent details of the case, which features a sighting, engine malfunction, and radio failure.Endnotes:

Just after 7 p.m. Valentich radioed Melbourne Air Flight Service (MAFS):

Valentich: “Is there any known traffic in my area below 5,000 feet?”

MAFS: “Negative. No known traffic.”

Valentich: “Seems to be a large aircraft below 5,000 feet.”

MAFS: “What type of aircraft?”

Valentich: I cannot confirm. It has four bright lights that appear to be landing lights…aircraft has just passed over me about 1,000 feet above.”

MAFS: “Is large aircraft confirmed?”

Valentich: “Affirmative; at the speed it is traveling are there any RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force] aircraft in the vicinity?”

MAFS: “Negative. What is your altitude?”

Valentich: “4,500 feet.”

MAFS: “Conirm you cannot identify aircraft?”

Valentich: “Affirmative.”

Three minutes later, Valentich again contacts MAFS:

Valentich: “Aircraft…It’s not an aircraft. It’s” [break in transmission.]

MAFS: “Can you describe aircraft?”

Valentich: “It’s flying past. It has a long shape. Cannot identify more than that…coming for me right now. It seems to be stationary. I’m orbiting, and the thing is orbiting on top of me. It has a green light and sort of metallic light on the outside.”

He then reported that the object had vanished.

MAFS: “Confirm it has vanished?”

Valentich: “Affirmative. Do you know what sort of aircraft I’ve got? Is it military?”

Valentich: “Proceeding King Island. Unknown aircraft now hovering on top of me.”

MAFS: “Acknowledge.”

Valentich: “Delta Sierra Juliet [Valentich’s call sign] Melbourne…”

This final transmission was followed by 17 seconds of a loud metallic sound. An extensive search of Bass Strait failed to turn up any trace of Vallenich or the aircraft. There were a number of UFO sightings reported on that date, at least 15 of which have remained unexplained. There had also been several reports earlier in the year.

In 1944 a Beufort bomber crew reported a “dark shadow” flying within 100 feet of their plane for 18 to 20 minutes, causing radio and ADF malfunction before zooming away at three times the speed of the bomber.